Ornette Coleman, the alto saxophonist and composer who led the jazz avant-garde while also revolutionizing the music’s mainstream, died June 11 in Manhattan. The cause of death was cardiac arrest. Coleman was 85. For more on the music and legacy of this jazz giant, see this issue’s cover story beginning on p. 26 and coverage of Coleman’s funeral on p. 10.
Gunther Schuller, a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, conductor, musician, writer and educator best known as the architect of the Third Stream, a concept and term he created in 1957 to describe the fusing of jazz and classical music, died June 21 in Boston. The cause was leukemia. He was 89.
Masabumi Kikuchi, a lyrical, emotive pianist who played with Lionel Hampton, Sonny Rollins, Joe Henderson, Elvin Jones, Gil Evans and…